Review of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse: Even though the film loses its footing in the middle as it becomes consumed in its own brilliance, it builds to an unexpectedly spine-tingling ending.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider Verse is a restless, all-pistons rollercoaster ride, much like its main character, who can't seem to stop dipping and soaring, swinging and swaying. It doesn't always land on its feet, but it's amazing to be there when it does.
In many ways, this feels like a natural sequel to its Oscar-winning predecessor, Into the Spider-Verse. But there is a distinction: Across the Spider-Verse, there is the burden of legacy, and thus the need to impress, to go that extra mile, to do just one more thing.
Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld) is having normal problems with her cop father, who, unaware that she is Spider-Woman, is on the hunt for her white caped crusader alter-ego for the "murder" of Peter Parker. Gwen is also mourning the loss of Miles Morales (Shameik Moore), a friend from another realm she met last time.
Miles has his own issues with his parents (Brian Tyree Henry and a beautiful Luna Lauren Valez), who don't understand what's going on with their 15-year-old brilliant boy who can study multiverses and quantum physics at Princeton.
Both families are fantastic, depicted in stunningly different ways yet with shared feelings when it comes to parents dealing with adolescent children. Miles' house is full of colour and music, soaked with the exuberant lifestyles of Brooklyn's Black Hispanic population, to which he belongs. Gwen's house is designed in the form of a painting that fades into relief, expressing her and her father's mood.
Of course, the film isn't about staying at home, but some of its best passages occur when it does. As expected, the two kids are soon confronted with a villain, however in the spirit of the film, he is a charming rogue dubbed the Spot (Jason Schwartzman), who harbours a deep loathing for Miles. When Miles blew up the collider for the last time, he reduced a scientist named Jonathan Ohnn to this Spot figure, so named because he is essentially a shroud skeleton punctured with holes that do a variety of functions that you rapidly lose track of.
Gwen's pursuit of this Spot brings her to Miles, and Miles to Spider-Man Heaven, a headquarters teeming with web-slinging superheroes from multiple realities. There are plenty of adorables here, including Peter Parker (Jake Johnson) as a pink-bathrobe wearing father obsessed with his toddler daughter and taking her photos, a pregnant Spider-Woman called Drew (Issa Rae), the Indian Spider-Man called Pavitra Prabhakar (Karan Soni) who has little to do but give a short tour of Bombay (though more seems ahead), and the ninja version of Spider-Man called Miguel O'Hara (Isaac), who is the real mean hair-raiser of this Spidey HQ.
For all that, you will have to wait for the third chapter. Yeah, Across the Spider-Verse ends on a cliffhanger, for why have less when you can pack in more?
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